JAKARTA (foresthints.news) - Golden Agri Resources (GAR), the world's second largest listed palm planter, has proved that deforestation-free supply chains are indeed attainable through what it termed ‘deep engagement’ with one of its suppliers.

In this case, this pertains to the palm oil giant’s efforts to clean up its supply chains from the clearing of high carbon stock (HCS) forests in Indonesia's West Papua province.

The particular supplier in question is the Indonesian-listed palm oil company Eagle High Plantations Tbk, whose subsidiary PT VMA began clearing Papua's HCS forests in the early months of 2015 to develop palm oil plantations.

In its report, Greenomics employed USGS Landsat 8 images to demonstrate that Papua’s HCS forests were being cleared in a palm oil plantation owned by Eagle High, as seen in the images below.

GAR - in a statement cited by mongabay.com - explained that all of its suppliers must comply with the no-deforestation commitment outlined in its Forest Conservation Policy (FCP). The Singapore-based palm oil giant made it clear that Eagle High, including its subsidiary PT VMA, is certainly no exception.

To show that no evidence of any further HCS forest clearance in PT VMA’s West Papua concession has been discovered, Greenomics recently presented various time-series ESA Sentinel-2 images (Mar 5).

These images reveal that the HCS forests concerned have been deforestation-free ever since Eagle High launched its new sustainability policy in 2016, at least until February 2018, as depicted in the images below:

Nonetheless, Greenomics cautions that intensive, independent third-party monitoring of a number of companies that have adopted deforestation-free supply chains should still be prioritized so that an impact is truly felt on the ground, not just on paper.

It should be acknowledged, according to Greenomics, that the deforestation-free situation at PT VMA is largely thanks to the real contribution of such independent third-party monitoring.

In fact, this kind of surveillance has proved to be a critical component in supporting the efforts of companies that have declared their commitment to deforestation-free supply chains, such as GAR.

The GAR-Eagle High deep engagement model which has given rise to deforestation-free practices at PT VMA adds to a series of best practices previously implemented as part of efforts to clean up palm oil supply chains.

Indonesia’s Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya confirmed at the end of January this year that companies which have committed to implement deforestation-free supply chains would have no choice but to display their commitment on the ground.